INAUGURAL SPEECH OF
FERDINAND E. MARCOS SR.
Sa bisa ng inyong makapangyarihang hatol at sa pamamagitan ng mabiyayang
tangkilik ng Dakilang Maykapal, narito ako ngayon sa inyong harap sa
pinagkaugalian nang ritwal sa pagtatalaga at pagsumpa sa tungkulin ng isang
bagong halal na Pangulo.
Sa kapasiyahan ninyong ito ay muli pa ninyong pinatunayan na matatag at
matibay ang pagkakatanim ng mga ugat ng demokrasya sa sinapupunan ng
bansang ito. At sa bisa ng kapangyarihang ipinagkaloob sa inyo ng mga batas ay
naisasagawa nang mapayapa at maayos ang pagsasalin ng kapangyarihang
pampamahalaan.
By your mandate, through the grace of the Almighty, I stand here today in the
traditional ritual of the assumption of the Presidency.
It is but fitting and proper that this traditional ritual be undertaken on this
sacred ground. For 69 year ago today, a young patriot and prophet of our race fell
upon this beloved soil. He fell from a tyrant’s bullet and out of the martyr’s blood
that flowed copiously there sprung a new nation.
That nation became the first modern republic in Asia and Africa. It is our
nation. We are proud to point to our country as one stable in an area of instability;
where ballots, not bullets, decide the fate of leaders and parties.
Thus Kawit and Malolos are celebrated in our history as acts of national
greatness. Why national greatness? Because, armed with nothing but raw courage
and passionate intelligence and patriotism, our predecessors built the noble edifice
of the first Asian Republic.
With the same reverence do we consider Bataan, Corregidor and the Philippine
resistance movement.
Today the challenge is less dramatic but no less urgent. We must repeat the feat
of our forebears in a more commonplace sphere, away from the bloody turmoil of
heroic adventure – by hastening our social and economic transformation. For
today, the Filipino, it seems, has lost his soul, his dignity and his courage.
We have come upon a phase of our history when ideas are only a veneer for
greed and power in public and private affairs, when devotion to duty and
dedication to a public trust are to be weighed at all times against private advantages
and personal gain, and when loyalties can be traded in the open market.
Our people have come to a point of despair. I know this for I have personally
met many of you. I have heard the cries of thousands and clasped hands in
brotherhood with millions of you. I know the face of despair and I know the face of
hunger because I have seen it in our barrios, huts and hovels all over our land.
We have ceased to value order as a social virtue. Law, we have learned
successfully to flaunt. We have become past masters at devising slogans for the
sake of recorders of his history but not for those who would live by them in terms
of honor and dignity.
Peace in our time, we declare. But we can not guarantee life and limb in our
growing cities. Prosperity for all, we promise. But only a privileged few achieve it,
and, to make the pain obvious, parade their comforts and advantages before the
eyes of an impoverished many. Justice and security are as myths rendered into
elaborate fictions to dramatize our so‑called well‑being and our happy march to
progress.
But you have rejected all these through a new mandate of leadership. It is a
mandate that imposes a change of leadership in this country, and to me, as your
President, this mandate is clear – it is a mandate not merely for change. It is a
mandate for greatness.
For indeed we must rise from the depths of ignominy and failure. Our
government is gripped in the iron hand of venality, its treasury is barren, its
resources are wasted, its civil service is slothful and indifferent, its armed forces
demoralized and its councils sterile.
But we shall draw from our rich resources of spiritual strength that flow from
this place of martyrdom.
We are in crisis. You know that the government treasury is empty. Only by
severed self‑denial will there be hope for recovery within the next year.
Our government in the past few months has exhausted all available domestic
and foreign sources of borrowing. Our public financial institutions have been
burdened to the last loanable peso. The lending capacity of the Central Bank has
been utilized to the full. Our national government is indebted to our local
governments. There are no funds available for public works and little of the
appropriations for our national government for the present fiscal year. Industry is at
a standstill. Many corporations have declared bankruptcy. Local manufacturing
firms have been compelled to close or reduce their capacity.
Unemployment has increased. Prices of essential commodities and services remain
unstable. The availability of rice remains uncertain. Very recently the
transportation companies with the sanction of the Public Service Commission
hiked their fares on the plea of survival.
I, therefore, first call upon the public servants for self-sacrifice. Long have we
depended upon the people. In every crisis, we call upon our citizens to bear the
burden of sacrifice. Now, let the people depend upon us. The economic viability of
the government and of the nation requires immediate retrenchment. Accordingly,
we must install without any delay a policy of rigorous fiscal restraint.
Every form of waste – or of conspicuous consumption and extravagance, shall be
condemned as inimical to public welfare.
